sovereign authority, or succeed and thus become a sovereign authority.
The idea of sovereignty, in this modern sense, is implicit in the work of Machiavelli, writing at the start of the 16th century. A prince, to Machiavelli, answers only to himself รป or herself, if the prince is a Caterina Sforza. However, Machiavelli was well aware of contemporary political systems that did not meet this test of sovereignty. He describes the France of his day as a kingdom that could be easily conquered, but held only with great difficulty. The reason was that the king of France was predominant but not absolute. France had many other centers of power, nobles with their own forces of retainers, whom the king could not ignore. An invader who defeated the king's own relatively limited forces could take his place, but would still face the quasi-independent nobles.
Medieval Europe had many such arrangements, and they trended in various directions. The Holy Roman Emperors, once the most powerful monarchs in
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